You talk of religious movement stagnating and dying. That is very interesting.

You were removed as a PCM on these networks because you were stagnating and lack visible movement and because you claim after a year of supposedly volunteering to be a PCM to not even know what a PCM was and you thought it was unbiblical and refused numerous times to answer a simple question.

What we wanted to know is have you volunteered for the true job of PCM and if you have "Do you want and intend to do it?"

We have the responsibility to ask that of all volunteers. This has nothing to do with Matthew 6:1 "Be careful not to practice your righteousness" It does have to do with 1 Timothy 3:10 "And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being [found] blameless."
This also has to do with being fishers of men[1] and in those days that meant fishing with a net which we explained.

You say "Historically, religion has failed us" but anyone who reads the published articles and information shared on, with and for many here and by the network know that the word Religion has two definitions.

One common both 200 and 2000 years ago amongst Christians was to perform your "duty to God and your fellowman" which included networking and gathering together to practice pure religion unspotted by the world. That meant actually working to help care for the needy of society which has manifested itself in a charitable network since the days of Abraham through Christ.

And the other definition common to the Pharisees and many apostate preachers of the world was and is “what you think about God”. People even have wars and inquisitions over their personal opinions of religion. While the preachers argue over dogma, no one does the work of pure religion which requires people gathering together and working reliably, contributing freely and diligently striving for righteousness.

Even though numerous ministers have spoken with you and shared and supported you when you needed help you you continue in ways contrary to these simple truths concerning service as a team. And now you have told us what you think.

We were still seeking to know if you were willing to perform those duties you said you volunteered to do over a year ago.

You said at one time you wanted to be a PCM and serve but when it was brought to your attention that you were not convincing your fellow PCM you were doing or even willing to do what you said you refused to say yes you would.

It has been stated over and over that no one can stay on this PCM group “row with others because this is a Row Only groups.

Why Row Only?

Is the phrase row only in the Bible? Is it a biblical concept like a Personal Contact Minister?

You can read There are several different words used in the Greek bible that are all translated into the single word minister. One of them is leitourgos[2] which is a public minister. A public servant of the people may use one of two types of welfare to serve, one by charity and the other by force. You cannot do it by charity without a network which we see used over and over in the Bible. When it is done by charity without exercising authority that is pure Religion.

Another word we find in the Bible appearing as minister is diakonos[3] which is one who one who executes the commands of another.

And yet another Greek word found in the New Testament which appears as minister, but also officer, and servant is huperetes[4] which means servant from a word that meant a rower and the verb hupereteo[5] meaning to serve or minister unto but defined to act as a rower.

This is why we remind those who are elected by the people that the PCM Group is a row only group. If someone comes on the group because a few people elected them and they are not properly connecting those people to what we seek to do or work with the other PCMs and Ministers of record they will likely not remain.

They certainly cannot remain on the [website PCM pages]. That is because those pages are the testimony by all the other working PCMs and MoRs that a particular individual is doing the job and can be relied upon.

Nothing is more biblical that the people choosing a minister to help bring them together to form a network of small intimate congregations working together with a larger network of congregations for the welfare of all in what sometimes can be both a perilous and even hostile world.

No one is persecuting you or calling you a “heretic”. No one is trying to alter your beliefs. We were asking what if you were going to honor your word to do the job and you refused to answer.

You are not even being expelled. You merely have not arrived because you never qualified as a PCM.

You talk about “The Christian religious institutions” but the only institution we seek is a voluntary network of people striving to practice pure religion. It is very clear that those who will not work and strive to practice that pure religion is actually a part of the “skeptical non-Messianic and non-Christian world.

We wish you well if you want to ever try again you are welcome to seek office again but you must prove yourself as the Bible clearly states.

1 Timothy 3:10 And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being [found] blameless.

Gregory

Dear Ebediah,

I remember in our first telephone conversations that you mentioned that you seek to gather with people that are straight shooters, no BS, no whiners, but up front, honest, who are iron willing to sharpen iron, and then you would tell me that you thought I was one of those types of people, but when I would really tell you what I thought you'd often react as though I was personally attacking you. And that is how you're reacting with the current situation where you wrote some rather alarming statements about your feelings towards what many people are doing and working at here because you don't like the "jargon" we use, yet you volunteered to be worker on our team, even though you felt that we are a "cult", but yet you stayed, and lurked and didn't really work with us, at all, and when you did, after over a year, start to express your true feelings, when we ask you some tough questions, you folded and started pointing blame and making excuses and reporting that we are attacking you, when it reality its you that are attacking us, defaming us, slandering our name, character and nature, without really ever taking the time to get to truly know us, apparently because our vocabulary is different than yours. It seems that if we did use words that you approve of then I guess that you would give us your vote of approval. Its form over substance apparently that is what you find vital when you meet new people, and if their "form" doesn't agree with your "form" then regardless of their substance, they're a "cult" or they are not true "Christians" in your opinion, and then you use their webpages to that they let you have editorial control to only slander, while never answering the serious questions posed to you. Is that a man of honor and virtue, one who says he likes straight shooters, no BS, people who are wise and accept rebuke and a "testing of the spirits", iron sharpening iron? Because from the "fruit" I have seen, and that is limited to what I have seen in regards to this network, my opinion is your more talk than walk, and even though you say that you're looking to gather with straight shooters, that doesn't seem to be your fruit and when others are that way you really don't like it, preferring to cast stones instead of sharpening iron. Its too bad too, many of us here really liked you personally.

Scott in Iowa

The following was posted on Ebediah.

Religious Movements....

An egg, unless it cracks its shell in hatching life, or is cracked into an omelet of nourishment, remains within its hard shell and rots in time.

Just as an egg is a transitional aspect of the process of life, so are religious movements. They begin with a great energy release of enthusiasm (entheos- inspired by God) at a discovered truth, gathering like-minded people together with hope of a better future. But if they are not fertilized to hatch into life, or made into a nutritious omelet to strengthen life, they stagnate within their hard white shells and begin to decompose into institutions with elected officials, uniforms, and expensive buildings. Yeshua likened such religious display to whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of corruption within (Matthew 23:27).

Historically, religion has failed us, making neither better people, nor people better, only more religious. Instead, institutionalized religion has tended to bring out some of the worst behavior of the human condition, including persecutions and counter-persecutions in the forms of inquisitions of “heretics”, crusades against the “heathen”, pogroms and expulsions and theologies of replacement, especially against the Jews- all in the name and love of Christ, and which have all succeeded only in distancing many from the Messiah himself. The Christian religious institutions have formed their hard shells of exclusivity into conflicting doctrines and dogmas that have splintered the faith into shards of division, like a shattered mirror, each a historical step begun with enthusiasm and then coalesced into a hard-shelled institution, each entirely certain of their own correctness. This has brought little more than a derogatory response to the message of salvation from an increasingly skeptical non-Messianic and non-Christian world.

"HHC" aka "His Holy Church" may well be on the way to just such a fate. As it forms its organizations and doctrines, electing its officials and "PCM"s, "MoR"s projecting their own personal visions, erecting their own Mighty One, 'networks" and alliances to protect and pay tribute to. This so called movement may soon find itself as another respectable religion on the already long list of respectable world religions. It may eventually stop its very movement forward entirely, and stagnate into just another static "Church" system among the many kinds of existent "Christian" religions already in conflict.

Like all movements, they have developed their own in-house jargon, which is understood only by those within the movement. But always it is not long before the jargon loses its original meaning and impact to become only a platitude. Many have then left all in dismay and disappointment. Some even have been given the 'bums rush' as would be expected from a Pharasitical religious group towards true disciples of the Messiah.

What to do to avoid such a fate? Religion has failed us, but the living Creator has not. The only way is to avoid being trapped in the trappings and forms of religion as an end in itself, but hold them loosely to be applied only in so much as they are useful to edify and instruct, not attempting to squeeze Eternal Kingdom principals down into our limited dogmas and traditions. The challenge is not in making declarations of a hyper-spirituality, or great spectacles and displays of order and of orderly worship which make men seem more than what we are, but to be men and women in the best sense of the word, not only members in doctrinal agreement, but faithful friends in a real sense- of each other and of Messiah (“I call you friends” said the Messiah- John 15:15). And that being right here in the reality of our time and in this world- and yet outside the camp with Yeshua.

Thus the tragic disconnect seen for so long between the vision and the reality may be healed, and the vision be woven into the very fabric of reality itself.

== Footnotes ==

↑Matthew 4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Mark 1:17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

↑ 3011 ~λειτουργός~ leitourgos \@li-toorg-os’\@ from a derivative of laos meaning people and ergon meaning work or employment; the word is translated minister 4 times and, he that ministers once. It is defined as 1) a public minister, a servant of the state 2) a minister, servant

↑ 1249 ~διάκονος~ diakonos \@dee-ak’-on-os\@ probably from an obsolete diako (to run on errands, cf 1377); n m/f translated minister 20, servant 8, deacon 3; 31. Defined 1) one who executes the commands of another, esp. of a master, a servant, attendant, minister 1a) the servant of a king similar to leitourgos

↑ 5257 ~ὑπηρέτης~ huperetes \@hoop-ay-ret’-ace\@ from hupo a primary preposition meaning of, by, under. It is also a derivative of eresso meaning to row); n m and is translated in the Bible officer 11, minister 5, servant 4; 20. And defined 1) servant 1a) an underrower, subordinate rower 1b) any one who serves with hands: a servant 1b1) in the NT of the officers and attendants of magistrates as — of the officer who executes penalties 1b2) of the attendants of a king, servants, retinue, the soldiers of a king, of the attendant of a synagogue 1b3) of any one ministering or rendering service 1c) any one who aids another in any work 1c1) an assistant 1c2) of the preacher of the gospel